had a not very savory reputation
in San Francisco?"

"On the contrary, he was a moral prig," Haythorne blurted out, with
apparently undue warmth. "He was a little scholastic shrimp without a
drop of red blood in his body."

"Did you know him?"

"Never laid eyes on him. I never knocked about in university circles."

"One side of the shield again," Messner said, with an air of weighing the
matter judicially. "While he did not amount to much, it is true--that
is, physically--I'd hardly say he was as bad as all that. He did take an
active interest in student athletics. And he had some talent. He once
wrote a Nativity play that brought him quite a bit of local appreciation.
I have heard, also, that he was slated for the head of the English
department, only the affair happened and he resigned and went away. It
quite broke his career, or so it seemed. At any rate, on our side the
shield, it was considered a knock-out blow to him. It was thought he
cared a great deal for his wife."

Haythorne, finishing his mug of coffee, grunted uninterestedly and
lighted his pipe.

"It was fortunate they had no children," Messner continued.

But Haythorne, with a glance at the stove, pulled on his cap and mittens.

"I'm going out to get some wood," he said. "Then I can take off my
moccasins and he comfortable."

The door slammed behind him. For a long minute there was silence. The
man continued in the same position on the bed. The woman sat on the grub-
box, facing him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked abruptly.

Messner looked at her with lazy indecision. "What do you think I ought
to do? Nothing scenic, I hope. You see I am stiff and trail-sore, and
this bunk is so restful."

She gnawed her lower lip and fumed dumbly.

"But--" she began vehemently, then clenched her hands and stopped.

"I hope you don't want me to kill Mr.--er--Haythorne," he said gently,
almost pleadingly. "It would be most distressing, and, I assure you,
really it is unnecessary."

"But you must do something," she cried.

"On the contrary, it is quite conceivable that I do not have to do
anything."

"You would stay here?"

He nodded.

She glanced desperately around the cabin and at the bed unrolled on the
other bunk. "Night is coming on. You can't stop here. You can't! I
tell you, you simply can't!"

"Of course I can. I might remind you that I found this cabin first and
that you are my guests."

Again her eyes trave